


Drift

by fenzi



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Dom/Sub AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-05-19 06:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14868789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenzi/pseuds/fenzi
Summary: Amanda knows she's a mess.  There's not much else she could be, given the circumstances.  Sonny, on the other hand, is sweet and patient and everything she should probably want for herself and her daughter.  He's also in love with her, but that's probably just because he has no idea what he's getting himself into.(This is an AU in which Dom/Sub identities and relationships are the norm and are codified into law.)





	1. Prologue Pt. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is really different from the fics I wrote before. It's an AU, and parts of it might be unsettling, but it does have a happy ending. If you have any questions or concerns, please comment so I can address them.

Amanda rubbed at her arms, trying to generate some sort of warmth. It was freezing out, and the clothes they’d had her wearing undercover weren’t cutting it, not after they’d made their collar and the adrenaline was seeping from her system.

“Nice work,” Carisi told her, and tossed her a balled up NYPD jacket. Of course he’d thought of it. He probably had band-aids and antibacterial spray on hand just in case she’d scraped herself up. Water and a light snack in the car. “You all right?”

She put on the jacket and ignored the question. As the only sub on the SVU squad, she’d probably been undercover more than everyone else combined, the first choice any time they needed to dangle someone as bait. Amanda didn’t complain, though; a sub police detective was enough of a novelty as it was. She may as well play to her strengths, and apparently her top strength in SVU was appearing to have “Please rape me” tattooed on her forehead.

“I’ll check in with the Lieutenant, then I’ll take you back home,” he told her, and she tamped down on the indignation that it wasn’t a question. Most of her irritation wasn’t at him, but at the lingering feeling of the perp’s hands on her body. That and the smirks she’d gotten from several of the officers who’d been part of the sting. She didn’t want to leave before she’d had a chance to do her job, the part of it that wasn’t letting perverts grope her while they collected enough evidence to pin them. She also didn’t want to go back home to Jesse until she’d had a chance to take a shower and change clothes.

Outside of that, the offer was tempting. She knew Carisi would stay, would cook a nice dinner, would play with Jesse so Amanda finally had some time to put some clothes in the wash. It was all too domestic, though, and she didn’t want to fall into that trap. She didn’t think he was trying to dom her, not exactly, but he probably couldn’t help it. The last time he’d come over, he’d put a hand on her shoulder and asked her whether she’d gotten enough to eat, and Amanda had almost been pushed down into subspace, until she had the presence of mind to make some excuse to retreat to the bathroom and recover.

Besides, what she really wanted was to go out and get wasted, since she’d booked the babysitter for the night, anyway.

“I just want to get back to the precinct and change,” she said, and Carisi took her at her word. She could find her own way to the bar.

* * *

The dom hit the floor with a satisfying thud. Amanda rode out the urge to kick him in the head, right in the mouth that had been spouting shit at her for the past ten minutes while she tried to ignore him.

The rest of the bar went dead, shocked at the sight of a sub dropping a dom twice her size. She saw their faces, spinning around her as the whiskey did its thing. She should probably get back to Jesse, but the room was moving too fast. The dom made his way to his feet and Amanda grabbed hold of the bar stool to keep from falling over before he even had a chance to knock her on her ass. Within seconds, a group of concerned citizens was holding the man back. Even in a dive like Amanda had chosen, they didn’t let doms beat on subs.

“Is there a dom we can call, sweetie?” one of them asked her, and she pushed away at their hands as they tried to settle her down into a chair. She could already tell where it was going.

* * *

She knew better than to speak for herself in court. Her main job was to look like a victim of circumstance. She stood silently and let the caseworker speak for her.

“Your honor, Ms. Rollins was defending herself. The dominant in question had been verbally harassing her for an extended period of time, then escalated to physical assault.”

“And at any point during this did she tell him to leave her alone, or was her first response to...” Judge Linden paused to check the file in front of her. “...punch the living daylights out of him?”

The caseworker pressed his lips together. “He had his hand up her shirt.”

“I imagine a sub alone and drunk in a bar like that would have made quite the target.” The judge took of her glasses and stared directly at Amanda. “Ms. Rollins, what in the world were you doing there alone in the middle of the night?”

“It’s not a crime to go to a bar alone,” Amanda replied, to the disapproval of both the judge and the caseworker. In the end, neither of them were on her side, though, no matter what they thought. Family court judges in these situations were mostly rubber stamps for whatever social services wanted, and an extra chance to run subs like Amanda through the ringer.

“No, it is not,” the judge agreed. “It’s also not very good judgement. This is not criminal court, Amanda. You’re here because we’re trying to determine what’s in the best interest of you and your family. Do you think it’s in the best interest of you and your family for you to be alone at a bar like that in the middle of the night?”

She ground her teeth together and breathed heavily through her nose. Of course it hadn’t gone to criminal court. The asshole wasn’t going to press charges, not when it would bring attention to the fact that he was taken out by a sub. If she’d been a dom, this whole thing would have ended when she’d knocked him out. The only reason she was stuck in court was that she was a sub who couldn’t be released into a dom’s custody. She’d seen Judge Linden before, and the woman had made it clear that she thought Amanda “would benefit from a more traditional family structure.” She’d also made a pointed comment about the justice system’s inability to provide the structure Amanda should be getting from a dom, words that still grated in Amanda’s ears.

“Ms. Rollins, answer the question. Do you think your behavior is in the best interest of your daughter?” the judge asked, and Amanda’s blood ran cold.

* * *

Amanda fingered her copy of the court order folded in her pocket. She hadn’t looked at it since she’d left the courthouse, but the contents were burned into her memory. Carisi was in the kitchen, oblivious to it all, letting her rest on the couch while he did whatever the hell took twenty minutes to do in the kitchen. He’d texted her after work, worried about the vague “appointment” that Amanda had needed to attend in the afternoon. It was easy to let him come into the apartment and just take over. She’d kept herself in a protective fog as he’d made dinner, gotten Jesse ready for bed, then packed up the leftovers and cleaned the kitchen. Amanda had managed to walk Frannie, but that was really just to give her the space to cry privately in the crowded anonymity of the New York streets.

She’d do anything for Jesse; she knew that. She just didn’t know what that ‘anything’ should be. Parts of the probation were straightforward: maintaining steady employment, alcohol restriction, regular meetings with the caseworker. It was the last requirement that had prompted her to down a quarter of her last bottle of Jack while Sonny read _Good Night, Construction Site _in the next room. She needed a dom who could “act in a supervisory capacity and ensure that the submissive maintains the conditions of the probation.”__

__The caseworker had acted like it was a win for Amanda, as if she’d been hoping for a dom her whole life, and could could finally reel one in with a court order that threatened the custody of her daughter. “I think this will be really good for you, Amanda,” he’d assured her, and Amanda had been a hair’s breadth away from violating her probation before she’d even left the courthouse._ _

__The whiskey warmed and numbed her. She flitted through names as she drifted on its effects. Anyone from GA was obviously out. She had the people she knew through Jesse, but she didn’t want to risk Jesse losing friends over any of it, and most of the parents groups she’d been a part of were filled with gossips who obsessed and worried over dumb shit like how long a kid should have a pacifier. That left everyone at work, which is where she knew she’d be going for this eventually._ _

__Amaro would have been perfect. He would have done it as a favor and let her do what she wanted, grumbling along with her at the overreach of the law. Fin would leave her alone at first, but she knew he’d take it out on her hide the first time she did something to risk the probation, and Amanda had no doubt that she would. She was already drinking, after all. Liv would be worse. Liv would make her go to therapy._ _

__That left Sonny. She knew she’d land on his name eventually. He would do it for her, she was sure. She was also sure that he might be in love with her. The last thing she wanted was something real. She took another gulp of the whiskey and set it on the floor beside her. She wondered whether she could do it._ _

__She heard him finishing up in the kitchen and shoved the bottle out of sight. Dizzy with the sudden movement, she steadied herself on the arm of the sofa and smiled as he entered the room._ _

__“Thanks for helping out tonight.”_ _

__He still had a towel over his shoulder, and water was lightly spattered on the front of his shirt. “Yeah, it’s fun for me, you know? Seeing Jesse, spending time with you guys.”_ _

__“Sit down.” She indicated the cushion beside her, and he threw the towel on the coffee table before settling down with her._ _

__“So, are we doing Netflix, or is something on?” he asked, reaching for the remote._ _

__She put a hand on his arm and used the other to pull him toward her, peeking up at his expression. He was unsure of what was going on, but he leaned in at her cues. She tilted her head up and pressed her lips to his. It was so much easier with the alcohol coursing through her system, when she didn’t really care what happened to her, or what _had_ happened to her in the past. Sonny responded carefully, then more actively as she opened her mouth to him. She leaned back and was pulling him on top of her when he grabbed the back of the sofa and broke the connection._ _

__“What’s wrong?” she asked._ _

__He squinted down at her in confusion. “Have you been drinking?”_ _

__“Does it matter?” She met his stare, more than a little irritated that he’d pulled her out of the fog she’d escaped into._ _

__“Yeah, it does. How did you get this drunk while I was cleaning the kitchen? And why?”_ _

__She scoffed and pulled the bottle from where she’d stashed it behind a throw pillow. “Gotta use it up. Help yourself.”_ _

__“What’s that supposed to mean?” He frowned and set the bottle on the coffee table, and Amanda pushed herself back up._ _

__She pulled the court order from her pocket and handed it to him. He took his time unfolding it, then read it over at least three times, his brow furrowing more deeply with each pass._ _

__“Amanda, this is serious. You’re on an alcohol restriction. You can’t be drinking at all.”_ _

__The whiskey was blunting her anger, and instead she just felt a passing annoyance at his concern. “You think they’re going to come test me at nine-thirty at night?”_ _

__“They could, and you could lose your job, lose Jesse-”_ _

__“I know how to fucking read, Carisi!” she snapped, snatching the paper back from him._ _

__He responded to her outburst by taking a few calming breaths of his own. “Okay, so what are you going to do?”_ _

__She shrugged. “It’s been six hours. I’m sorry I don’t have some grand life plan worked out yet.”_ _

__“You mean other than drink all your alcohol?” he asked, and she tried to glare at him, but she didn’t have the energy for it and ended up dropping her head into her hands instead. He sighed. “Amanda, they want you to get married.”_ _

__“They can’t force me to get married. The advocate told me so.” She actually hadn’t believed the advocate, but it was a comforting thought._ _

__Sonny carefully took the paper from her hands and looked it over again. “Yeah, but this ‘stable home life’ stuff, that’s what they mean. They want Jesse to have a dom in the house.”_ _

__It was all too much. Amanda started shaking and hot tears leaked through from where she was pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. She just wanted to escape from everything, and the alcohol wasn’t enough. Sonny’s arms around her should have been comforting, but instead she imagined herself squirmed out, out of her own skin and flying somewhere nothing could touch her._ _

__“It's going to be okay, Amanda. You’re going to be okay.”_ _

__His voice was impossibly close, and Amanda knew she was trapped right where she was._ _


	2. Prologue Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I got really sick. I hope future updates will not take so long.

A week later, they were in front of the judge, whose patronizing demeanor didn’t seem to bother Sonny at all. Amanda gritted her teeth through her own answers. Yes, she understood that this did not exempt her from the other conditions of her probation. Yes, she understood that Sonny could impose restrictions on her above and beyond those conditions. Yes, she understood that she was legally bound to abide by those restrictions. The judge’s eyes narrowed at Amanda’s tone, but instead of dealing with it directly, she sent Sonny a pointed look.

“And you believe that you’ll be able to ensure that Ms. Rollins maintains the condition of the probation?”

“Yes, your honor,” he replied, looking as if his Scoutmaster had just told him about a new ‘sucking up to the judiciary’ badge. “We’ve already talked through everything, and we’re both committed to making this work.”

“And I understand you’re getting married?”

“Yes, your honor, in just a few days.” Sonny took her hand in his and interlaced their fingers. Amanda let it happen, just as she had let everything else happen over the past week. It had just been too much, with Sonny asking her what she wanted, what he could do to help. Amanda hadn’t wanted help, and she still didn’t. She just wanted everything to go away. It had been so much easier just to tell him what he wanted to hear. She wasn’t even sure what she felt anymore, so it hadn’t been that hard. She’d even been as honest as possible, telling him she’d be a terrible wife, a terrible sub. He’d just laughed and told her how much he loved her. She might have said something about liking having him around. She might have mentioned not wanting anyone else. He deserved better, but she had her daughter to think about.

The caseworker spoke up, something about the best interest of Amanda and Jesse. Amanda wasn’t really listening anymore. She leaned into Sonny, and he tightened his fingers on hers.

* * *

A few days later, they were back at a courthouse, this time in Staten Island and with Sonny’s entire family in tow. Whatever Sonny had told them, somehow the entire thing had become a wedding. They were insisting on celebrating afterwards as if it had been real, and maybe it had been to them, to him. Amanda didn’t tell them any different, not as they ran her and Jesse through a gauntlet of hugs, kisses, and exclamations of how lucky Sonny was.

“Guys, you’re smothering them,” Sonny complained, reaching for Jesse. She climbed eagerly into the haven of his arms.

“Can you blame us?” his mother asked. It was becoming more and more clear to Amanda how Sonny had become the dom that he was, with the way his mother’s hands barely left his father’s shoulders and back, an endless source of affection and approval. Her hands finally broke contact with her husband, but only to frame Amanda’s face. “My son is so in love with you.”

“Ma! Stop!”

Deborah laughed but let Amanda go. “You can have her all to yourself tonight, Sonny. You have to share for at least an hour.”

“I’m not being jealous, Ma! I’m telling you to give her some space. She needs to breathe.”

Amanda did need to breathe. The entire day had been overwhelming. She’d been eyeing the bottle of champagne that Bella had smuggled into the building, and she wondered where and when it would be opened. Jesse was doing better than Amanda was, laughing at the faces that Sonny’s dad was making at her over Sonny’s shoulder.

As far as Amanda could tell, Sonny’s father was the perfect sub, sweet and supportive, and enjoying every bit of attention that Deborah slathered upon him. Sonny had chosen him to be their witness, despite the double take that they’d gotten from the officiant. She mulled over the high bar that the man had set as the rest of family debated the merits of going out to eat versus heading back to Deborah and Dominick’s house.

“Listen, Gina and I have kind of a tradition, but you need to be cool about it.” Bella sidled up to her and indicated her bag. “Don’t tell Sonny. Or any of the doms, really. Or my dad.”

“If this is about the champagne, I think they know, Bella.”

Bella cocked her head and opened the bag a little wider. “This is about the bottle of vodka I hid underneath the bottle of champagne.”

* * *

Sonny and Amanda ended up at a hotel while Jesse stayed with Bella and Tommy. It was a strange semblance of a honeymoon that everyone else insisted on. Amanda had managed to sneak enough vodka shots with Gina and Bella that she was feeling loose and ready for whatever the night threw at her. 

“We can just go home if you want,” Sonny assured her, even as he was sliding the key card into the slot on the hotel room door. Amanda couldn’t blame him. She was trying her best not to appear too drunk, but the efforts weren’t as successful as she would like. She probably seemed more withdrawn than anything else.

“No, we should stay,” she insisted. She was willing to play her part, but she wanted to do it before the alcohol wore off. She wanted the whole night over before the alcohol wore off.

Sonny smiled at her, cautiously relieved, and ushered her into the room, dragging their bags behind him. “Are you hungry? We can order-”

“No, I’m fine.” She bent down to dig through her bag, kicking off her heels in the process, and Sonny hovered over her, lost without the ability to occupy himself by carrying Amanda’s things, cooking her food, and caring for her daughter. Chafing under his attention, Amanda focused on pulling her toiletries out of the bag. Once she had what she needed, she stood, her shoulder brushing lightly against Sonny’s arm. “I’m just going to…”

“Yeah,” Sonny agreed, as she indicated the bathroom. 

She made her escape, closing and locking the door behind her. Finally alone, she closed the lid of the toilet and sat, steeling her resolve. She turned on the water for cover and played the situation out in her head. Meaningless sex was easy, the press of two bodies against each other, the focus on sensation without regard to who was providing it. She wanted to convince herself that this wouldn’t be any different, but she knew that she would falter under Carisi’s careful attention. It would be impossible to turn off her emotions, not when they would be his singular focus. She took a few deeps breaths, then brushed her teeth. She had done enough undercover work, baiting doms and reeling them in, that it shouldn’t be too hard to feign the feelings she ought to have.

Carisi was sitting on the bed when she emerged from the refuge the bathroom had provided. His jacket, vest and tie were laid neatly over the back of a chair, his shoes arranged beneath. He stood and approached her. “Amanda, I just want to say, whatever you want to do, or don’t want to do, it’s fine. I just want you to be happy.”

“I know.” Without her heels, he towered above her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up at his face. Still, she felt his steady gaze on the top of her head.

“Tell me how.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Tell me what you want, what will make you happy.”

He couldn’t make her happy, but there was no need for him to know that. She leaned in until her forehead was resting on his shoulder, then began to tug up at his shirt, pulling it free from his waistband. She saw his abdomen contract as he sucked in a sharp breath, and she ran her hands across his bare skin. Already she could see him hardening, and his breath was loud and hot in her hair. She ran a thumb along the zipper of his pants, and he grunted, his hands tightening slightly in her hair. “Amanda, please. Tell me what you want.”

Ignoring his words, she worked open his pants, then slipped her hand down the front of his boxers and clasped his erection. It was as if a switch had been flipped inside him, and he suddenly let his hands and lips roam freely across her body. Amanda felt satisfied, the way she’d pushed him to fall apart, and she tilted her head up and let him work his tongue into her mouth.

Before she knew it, the rest of their clothes were lying on the hotel room floor, and she was on her back in the bed, bracing herself against the headboard as Sonny thrust into her from above. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him in further, timing her own movements with his. In turn, he buried his face into her neck, and she forced herself not to turn away from the feel of his damp breath against her skin. He was whispering something that she tried to block out.

“Finish, finish,” she prompted him. As she clenched around his cock and dug her fingernails into his upper arms, he quickened his pace, culminating in a prolonged thrust that left him bonelessly attempting not to crush her beneath his satiated body.

“Oh, God, Amanda,” he panted, then rolled off her and onto the other side of the bed. “Just give me a minute.”

She didn’t know what he needed a minute for, not until he rolled back to give her a quick peck on the cheek, then stood and went to the bathroom. She heard the water running, then he was back, holding a damp washcloth. He knelt beside her and began to run it between her legs, cleaning her up. It was warm and comforting, and she grabbed it and finished up herself before tossing it back toward the bathroom.

If Sonny minded, he didn’t say anything. He just pulled the blankets over both of them and held her close. “I love you, Amanda.”

His touch on her overly sensitive skin was pushing her toward the edge of anger, or at least frustration. She wanted him to fall asleep so she could take a shower and put on her pyjamas. In the meantime, she turned her face into his shoulder and said nothing.

* * *

Sonny, unsurprisingly, was the perfect dom. He was attentive and kind, completely dedicated to ensuring that all of Amanda’s needs were being met. More importantly, he was dedicated to ensuring that all of Jesse’s needs were being met. Sometimes, when Amanda thought she couldn’t bear it anymore, she caught a glimpse of Sonny helping Jesse with her hair or cooing over a drawing, and she knew she could endure anything.

It took her almost two weeks to fuck it all up.

Jesse was in bed, lulled to sleep by a series of stories, cuddles, and kisses from both Amanda and Sonny. A vacuous young sub was being interviewed as part of a reality tv show, and Amanda rolled her eyes as she listened to the narcissistic ramblings. Sonny came back from the kitchen, where he’d been putting away their ice cream dishes, and he jostled her for space on the couch. It was reminiscent of a time before everything had gone awry, and maybe that’s why Amanda flinched when Sonny put an arm around her and lay a soft kiss at the corner of her mouth.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, you just surprised me.” She grabbed the remote and turned off the television. “Let’s go to bed.”

Sonny, ever amenable to Amanda’s whims, followed her out of the living area and back to the bedroom. “So, when you say you want to go to bed…”

Amanda didn’t need to look back. She could hear the hopeful grin in his voice. She pulled off her shirt and let it drop to the floor, unsurprised when Sonny’s hands appeared at her sides, then slid around until he held her back pressed against his torso, his head ducked down so that he could leave a trail of kisses on her neck. Once he’d had his fill of that, he turned her around to capture her mouth with his, managing to pull off he rest of their clothes without breaking contact. He walked Amanda back to the bed, where she sat, then leaned back so that he could crawl on top of her. His erection hung heavily between them, and Amanda looked away, carelessly letting her eyes rest briefly on Carisi’s face.

She tried to get the image of him out of her head, dissociate to get through the moment, but she felt the pressure building on the back of her eyelids. She pulled him toward her so he couldn’t see her face, opening her legs and hooking the back of his thigh with her ankle. He lined up and entered her, and she tried to keep her cringe inconspicuous. As he adjusted himself, he pulled away, just enough to see the first tear escape.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her.

“Nothing, just keep going.” She wiped at the side of her face and tilted her pelvis up into him. His concern was making everything worse, and she turned her face into the pillow.

He wasn’t having it. He pulled out of her, then leaned over to free up a hand and caress the side of her face. “Come on, baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong. Just keep going.” Her veneer of enthusiasm was fading, and all that was left was a hot frustration that Carisi wouldn’t continue with the charade. She grabbed his cock and tried to guide it back into her. “This is part of the deal, right?”

Sonny sat back sharply on his heels, pulling himself completely from her grasp. “What _deal_?”

Amanda closed her eyes, then covered them with her hand for good measure. “God, Carisi, could you just stop talking and fuck me like a normal person?”

The bed shifted as Carisi stood. Amanda heard the rustle of clothing, and when she took her hand from her eyes, he was leaning against the doorway in a tee shirt and boxers, running his hands over his face. “Amanda, what _deal_ are you talking about?”

“Just forget it.”

He pushed himself from the doorway. “Are you having sex with me because you think you have to?”

“We’re _married_ ,” she scoffed, covering up her own vulnerability with disdain. “Married people have sex.”

Sonny’s lips pressed together in grim dissatisfaction with her lack of answer. “I’m going to sleep on the couch.”

She watched him go, then lay in bed wondering why she wasn’t happy that she’d driven him away. He wouldn’t divorce her, she knew, and he wouldn’t leave Jesse. Finally, after half an hour of battling the oppressive emptiness of the vacant side of the bed, Amanda got up and found Sonny sitting awake on the couch.

“Come back to bed.”

He looked up at her, and she could see the redness around his eyes, the remnants of the stricken expression his face had held when she’d let everything slip. “Do you want me there?”

“I just asked you there, didn’t I?” she answered without answering.

He didn’t fall for it. “Amanda, do you want me sharing a bed with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

She looked around the darkened room for an answer. It was late. She was tired. Jesse was in the next room, and she couldn’t shout the way that she wanted to, the way she needed to keep from falling into subspace when her defenses were so low. “Because I don’t know. I have a daughter. I have this court thing. I don’t have the luxury of sitting around thinking about what I want. I have to do what I have to do.”

“Like have sex with me,” Carisi concluded, and Amanda didn’t reply. He raised his hands up in a helpless gesture. “So, what then? I’ve been raping you for the past two weeks?”

“I didn’t say that.” She was so tired. She felt herself slipping, and the fact that her dom wouldn’t come to bed with her was beginning to loom over her consciousness in a way that she couldn’t control.

“You just said you don’t have the ability to consent.”

“That’s not what I meant.” It took all her will to contradict him rather than apologize and beg forgiveness. She was shaking with the effort. “I was trying to do what you wanted and now you’re mad at me.”

Her voice broke, and the dam holding back her tears with it. She had fallen completely into subspace, and her whole body heaved with the possibility that her dom was rejecting her. Sonny saw it immediately and jumped up, his arms circling around her.

“I’m not mad at you, baby. I promise. We’re okay. I’m right here.”

She’d be furious at herself in the morning, she knew, but his embrace felt so good, and the fact that he wasn’t angry was the most effective balm she could have received. She buried her face in his tee shirt and took deep, shaky breaths, immersing herself in his scent.

“I’m coming back to bed. We’ll work everything out. I promise.”


	3. Wednesday

They didn’t work everything out, not exactly, but Amanda continued to go through the motions of her life, motions that were becoming fewer and fewer as Sonny slowly took over everything at home. She had never been one to cook or engage in any of the extraneous domestic drudgery that others seemed to find so essential. Still, somehow there were meals on table, clean clothes folded in the drawers, the floors swept and the counters wiped down. She watched her home life carry on without any active participation on her part. By the time she woke up in the morning, Jesse was dressed and eating breakfast. By the time she got home, Jesse was fed and in her pyjamas. She slept, she woke, and she worked as much overtime as the department would allow.

Work was good. Work was an escape. Work only occasionally had assholes that looked her up and down before stammering that maybe the crime scene would be too disturbing for her to examine.

“What? Is there something about me that makes you think I can’t do the job I’m here to do?”

The young officer looked suitably nervous as her eyes flicked between Amanda and Fin. “No, of course not. I just mean…” She trailed off before turning to Fin for support. “There’s no reason everyone needs to see it.”

Fin shot the dom an irritated look. “Just let us our do our job.”

One look at the victim made it clear why the officer had been so nervous. The corpse was medium height, slim, and blond. In short, it looked a hell of a lot like Amanda, if Amanda had been floating in the Hudson river for over a day. For a moment, she imagined it: the calm of the water muffling all sound and expectation of the world around her as she drifted through time.

Her reverie abruptly ended as Fin spoke up, something about fitting a pattern. Amanda nodded absently and squatted down to examine the bruising on the victim’s neck. Even if it hadn’t fit the pattern, SVU would have been called in, with the ripped jogging shorts and underwear hanging loosely around one thigh. Still, their serial killer had a type, and preferred method of killing and disposing of his victims. Amanda already knew what the ME’s report would say.

“No wallet, but we got a phone.” Fin held up the waterlogged device before sticking it in an evidence bag. “Maybe TARU can make something of it.”

Amanda stood. “Somebody’s got to have reported her missing. I’ll get back to the precinct and-”

“Amanda, you’ve got to cool it on the OT. Go home. Sleep.”

She eyed Fin, wondering how far an argument might get her. From the look on his face, not much. “Yeah, fine. Tell Sonny I’ll see him at home.”

* * *

Amanda didn’t go home. Instead she sat in the corner of a bar just a few blocks from the apartment, staring at her drink as the ice melted, occasionally lifting her eyes to flirt with the dom who’d bought it for her. He didn’t seem to care that she hadn’t taken a sip, probably taking as affectation: the innocent submissive, too nervous to dare take a drink in front of him.

“How’s a sweet thing like you unspoken for?” he asked, leaning in as if they were co-conspirators in her availability.

“Who says I’m unspoken for?” she shot back with a grin, and he looked her up and down, eyebrows raised appreciatively at her audacity.

It was so easy, reeling them in. Amanda hadn’t done it for a while, not outside of her undercover work. She had him, she knew, at least until the bouncer walked up and demanded her attention.

“There’s at dom at the door who says he’s your husband. He asked me to get you.”

The target of Amanda’s flirtation pulled back from her with an amused snort. “Damn, you weren’t kidding.”

Leaning back for a better line of sight, Amanda glimpsed Sonny at the entrance to the bar, a sleeping Jesse in his arms. That at least explained why Sonny hadn’t come in to get her himself.

“You’re eighty-sixing me?” she asked, and the bouncer glanced back to the door.

“Miss, he seems really worried about you.”

He didn’t seem worried. He seemed pissed. The dom beside her noticed, too, whistling softly at the situation. She wouldn’t be getting any more free drinks from him.

“Thanks for the drink, sweetie,” she said, patting him on the shoulder, more for Sonny’s benefit than anything else. 

Determined to keep the upper hand despite her acquiescence, Amanda sauntered to the door with the bouncer on her heels. Sonny looked her up and down before thanking the bouncer.

“Is there a tab we need to settle?” he asked.

“Come on, Sonny,” Amanda baited him, irritated with his equilibrium and determined to disturb it. “You really think a sub in a bar like this pays for her own drinks?” 

It was needlessly cruel. The bouncer’s eyes went wide, but Sonny couldn’t react with Jesse in his arms. Amanda wondered at how low she’d sunk, to use her own child as a human shield. 

“Are you ready to go home?” he asked, voice tight and face rigid. He was holding it together for Jesse, who had started to stir in his arms. Amanda just scoffed and started walking to the apartment building.

While she kept her eyes on the route in front of her, Amanda’s attention was on the reassuring whispers of Sonny soothing Jesse back to sleep. It pulled at her, even more so as he began to hum a vaguely familiar melody. By the time that they reached the apartment, Jesse was again slack in Sonny’s arms. Amanda let them in, then reached for her daughter.

“I’ll put her to bed,” she offered, but Sonny just walked past her and into Jesse’s room. Amanda was left waiting by the front door, which she closed and locked before following Sonny. Before she could get to her daughter’s room, though, Sonny emerged and shut the door silently behind him. Amanda tried to reach past. “Wait, I want to kiss Jesse goodnight.”

Sonny didn’t budge. “Yeah, and three hours ago I sent you a text that said, ‘Where are you? Jesse wants you to kiss her good night.’ Three hours ago!”

“I didn’t see it.” Amanda had a good twenty-plus unread text messages from Carisi from throughout the day, and a handful of voice messages to boot.

Sonny narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t tell me your phone died. I know it was on, because that’s the only way I found out where you were. And that still doesn’t explain what you were doing in a bar when you-”

The slow crescendo of his voice suddenly halted, and he ran both his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m too angry. I need a minute.”

Amanda watched him, untethered as he extracted himself from the argument and stood gripping the edge of the kitchen sink instead. She assumed she was expected to wait for him, and if he was really intending to calm himself down, she didn’t have any particular desire to disrupt the process. After a few long moments, he straightened himself and turned back to her, his body and voice tightly coiled into themselves.

“You cannot be in bars, Amanda. You could end up in conventional court, losing your daughter, losing your job, in jail…” He ticked off all the potential consequences on his fingers, and Amanda grit her teeth at the lecture. She’d heard it all before. “I need to know that you’re not going to do this again.”

It wasn’t a promise that Amanda could make. If someone had asked her at four in the afternoon whether she’d be spending her evening in a bar, her answer would have been an emphatic “no”, but if there was one constant in her behavior, it was her tendency toward self-destruction. That and destruction of every relationship she was a part of. She tried to calm her mind, but all it did was conjure images of the afternoon’s victim floating in the water, long tendrils of blond hair aimlessly curling and uncurling from around lifeless limbs. She felt hollow, and unrooted from the floor. She wondered why she’d tried so hard to anger him earlier. 

Back in Georgia, any of her doms would have handed her ass to her after what she’d done at the bar. Amanda imagined pushing Sonny to those extremes, but it didn’t ring true. What she actually craved was his arms around her, just as they’d been around Jesse earlier, while he whispered calming messages in her ear.

“I didn’t violate my probation,” she said, her tone a strange compromise between defiance and entreaty.

He sighed, then sat down at the table and massaged the bridge of his nose.“You’re on alcohol restriction, and you were in a bar with a drink in your hand.” 

“I didn’t drink it.” She hadn’t ordered it either, but if Sonny wasn’t going to bring up the dom that she’d been flirting with, Amanda wasn’t either.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not how a judge would see it.” 

“I wasn’t going to get caught.” 

Sonny’s eyebrows shot up, and he almost jumped from the chair. “You _did_ get caught! _I_ caught you.” 

“I meant by someone who’s checking up on me for the court.” She looked away, knowing that she was in the wrong, but too entrenched to back down.

“Yeah, that’s me, Amanda. I’m the one who checks up on you. I signed a document that makes me legally responsible for making sure you don’t break your probation, and required to tell the court if I don’t think I can do it.” 

“Sorry for your legal troubles.” 

Sonny went silent, the same way he always did when Amanda was being difficult. She still wasn’t sure whose victory it was. She glowered at the dim room while she waited for the other shoe to drop. Finally, Sonny placed his hands flat on the table and looked up at her. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going straight to work and straight back home from now on.” 

Sonny never ordered her around like that, and shocked disbelief slowly gave way to outrage. It sounded like he was _grounding_ her. “This is bullshit.”

“What’s bullshit is that you said you wanted me to do this, and now you’re giving me shit about it.” Sonny also never swore at her. The sound of it set Amanda’s heartbeat into an erratic pattern that pounded against her inner ear. “The court condition wasn’t just to have a dom. It was to have a dom who could ensure that you maintain the conditions of your probation, and I can’t do that when you’re running off to bars after work.”

“I can’t just stay home all the time! I have a life. I have stuff to do.”

“What do you need to do?!” he demanded of her. “When’s the last time you’ve been to the grocery store? Picked up a prescription? Gone to the dry cleaners?” 

He was right, of course. He’d done everything for her and Jesse once he’d moved in. She clenched her jaw and settled into the truth of it. She was bringing nothing to the table.

“I’m sorry, baby, I shouldn’t have said that.” He stood and walked toward her, the deliberate steps of someone approaching an injured animal in the wild. “Amanda, I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, rejecting the apology. Why shouldn’t he have said it? It was true. She did nothing but wallow in self pity. Even Frannie had begun to recognize Sonny as the one to go to for treats and walks and cuddles. 

“Let’s just do this for a week and see how it feels. It’s not so bad hanging out with me and Jesse and Frannie, right?”

It was exhausting hanging out with Sonny and Jesse and Frannie. It was exhausting being herself, and she was more herself with them than with anyone else. 

She stood passively as he kissed the side of her face, told her how much he just wanted her safe and happy, asked her whether she was hungry. She waited it out as long as she could, then excused herself to go get ready for bed.


	4. Thursday

Amanda and Fin stood in front of the white board, getting the rest of the team caught up. Barba was lounging in one the chairs, and Amanda tried her best not to look at him. He didn’t actually need to be at the briefing, and his presence was setting her teeth on edge. He was the ultimate cliché of a New York working sub, with his flashy clothes and self satisfied smirk. Most of the time, Amanda wanted to punch that smirk off his face. It didn’t help that he flirted with half the doms in the unit, mouthing off and generally bratting his way through the precinct, making it twice as difficult for any other sub in the area to be taken seriously. Sonny was the current target of his derision-laced flirtation, as Barba made some cutting remark that Sonny chose to ignore.

“Come on Rafael.” Sonny went at him with the same patient indulgence as he afforded Jesse when she wanted to wear her sandals in the snow. “You can come up with something.”

“Something more relevant than the Fourth Amendment? Or did they forget to teach about that one in night school?” Barba asked, his eyes daring Sonny to react to the jab. “Come back with something more, and we’ll talk.”

Fin shook his head at the exchange. “You said you wanted evidence. This is how we get it.”

“Yes, with probable cause. Unless you want to search every apartment in the city. Leave no stone unturned? No civil right unchallenged?”

“All right, all right,” Liv cut in. “Fin, Amanda, see what else you can dig up. Rafael, can I see you in my office?”

A small smirk crossed Amanda’s lips as Barba followed Liv back into her office. Fin saw it and narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she grinned back at him.

“Uh-huh.” Fin wasn’t buying it, but he had more important concerns. They started to sort through their list of potential interviews, mapping out the most efficient way to spend their afternoon.

“Hey Amanda,” Sonny interrupted them. “Bella wants to know if we can take Jamie tonight. Just until eight or nine.”

Amanda kept her eyes on the papers in front of her. Her good cheer at whatever dressing down Barba was getting in Liv’s office had disappeared at the intrusion of domestic life into her work at the precinct. “Are you asking my permission?”

“Well, yeah, I wanted to check in with you before I said yes.” Sonny’s voice was slightly perplexed, as if it were obvious that he would ask his sub’s permission before making such a decision, and he was unashamed to admit it in a room full of doms. 

Amanda shuffled the papers in front of her. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. We have these interviews.”

“I’m not staying late for this,” Fin cut in, with a sideways glance to Amanda. “Liv didn’t say anything about overtime.”

Sonny’s phone buzzed and he looked back down. “Bella says she can pick Jesse up and drop both of them off together at six. She’s offering to make us a lasagne, too. I think she’s really desperate.”

“Yeah, fine,” Amanda snapped. “I don’t need a detailed agenda, Carisi. I’m trying to work.”

If Sonny minded her tone, he didn’t let on. Fin, though, was practically emanating avuncular disapproval. Amanda ignored them both as she noticed Barba strutting out of Liv’s office, with a smirk that said entirely too much about his feelings on getting scolded. He had probably been angling for the one on one in the office the entire time, with the way he’d been mouthing off to everyone. Amanda had seen enough of the look in his eyes when he stared at Olivia.

“Found my evidence yet?” he asked, and Amanda let out an irritated hiss. Barba noticed and quirked a brow at her. “Take it up with the Supreme Court.”

“Leave her alone, Barba,” Fin ordered, and Barba obeyed. Apparently the trip to Liv’s office had been enough for him.

Amanda wasn’t a hundred percent on board with Fin white knighting for her, but he _was_ the sargent, and it was nice to see Barba even a little chagrined. He recovered quickly, though, strolling over to take a look at the files himself, somehow managing to crowd into her space despite the large work area.

“Okay, I told Bella it was fine.” Sonny’s voice carried from across the squad room. “She’s going to pick up Jesse, too, and drop them both off together. You’ll be back by six for dinner, right?”

“Family dinner. That’s sweet,” Barba murmured just loud enough for Amanda to hear, and her temper flared. She reached past Barba’s hands to shove the files into the semblance of a pile, then looked up at Fin.

“Let’s plan on the way.”

* * *

The interviews lasted a little longer than Fin had hoped, but Amanda still had plenty of time to get home before Bella dropped off the kids at six. Instead, she found herself heading toward Riverside Park, tuning out the buzz of her phone as Sonny called to ask if she was getting home soon. She finally just sent it to voicemail, pushing down the inevitable guilt that tried to insinuate itself into her consciousness.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong. She just couldn’t take his insistent kindness, and she certainly wasn’t ready to maintain the facade that Sonny’s sister expected to see. If she couldn’t fight, she needed to be alone, or as alone as a person could get in a place that held seventy thousand people every square mile. With her coat wrapped tightly around her, she ignored the persistent crush of people in a way that she’d never been able to in Georgia. The rest of the world ignored her back.

Her phone buzzed again and she clicked it off without looking at it. She imagined throwing it into the Hudson and just walking away from everything. She saw it in her mind, sinking to the bottom, blinking and buzzing until the water permeated everything and it lay still and silent in the silt at the bottom of the river. The thought of herself, drifting above it, her own activity similarly quelled, her limbs still and her thoughts silent as her life carried on without her.

It was a strange thing, to be redundant in your own story, but Amanda saw it in the way that Jesse’s arms reached for Sonny when she she was tired. The truth was that her life would be better without her in it. Sonny could find a sweet sub, sweet enough to love another person’s child, someone who made cupcakes from Pinterest and didn’t climb onto the lower rung of a boardwalk railing and lean out over the rushing water.

“Miss, are you okay?” An older dom who looked reasonably alarmed by Amanda’s precarious position stood close enough to touch her. Close enough to catch her if she fell, Amanda realized. Close enough to grab her if she tried to jump. 

Amanda straightened, jolted into awareness of where she was and what she was doing. “I’m fine. I was just looking for something I dropped.”

Lies came so easily. The dom didn’t leave, and Amanda realized that the woman was waiting for her to step down from the railing. “Is it your phone? Do you need me to call somebody for you?”

Trust Amanda to find the one New Yorker who didn’t know how to mind her own business. She was also showing signs of having trained in crisis situations. Maybe a doctor or social worker. Or a shrink. Amanda stepped down and away from her and pulled out her phone.

“I’m fine. It’s not important.” In an effort to end the conversation, Amanda turned her phone back on, watching as the various startup logos finally gave way to her lock screen. It was already almost ten. She had no idea where the hours had gone. She was tired, though. It occurred to her that she could have been standing on the railing for hours before anyone had said anything to her. That was the New York Amanda had left Georgia for. One that let you disappear, even from yourself.

As the phone established its connections, it buzzed and beeped, gratuitous indicators of the number of times Sonny had tried to reach her throughout the evening. The pressure of it squeezed at her chest, and she took quick steps away from the overly solicitous dom, hoping the movement could relieve her of the worst of it. She knew she was walking toward home, but she tried not to think about it. At least she’d missed Bella, whose effortless camaraderie took more energy to engage with that Amanda could possibly muster up. She held an irrational hope that Sonny might have gone to bed already, but she knew it was too much to ask. She grit her teeth and prepared for confrontation.

* * *

She had barely put her key in the top lock when she heard the muted thumping of socked feet approaching the door. The lower lock clicked, and the door lurched open, her keys jangling harshly where they swung against the wood.

“Are you okay? Where were you?” Sonny reached for her, but she twisted from the embrace, pulling her keys from the lock and stepping inside.

She shut the door carefully behind her and flipped the deadbolt back into place, running her thumb across the ridges of the knob as she answered. “Out.” 

“Out? You were supposed to come home right after work.” His voice was right behind her, anxious and insistent, and everything that she didn’t want to be dealing with. She clenched her left fist around the keys, letting the metal dig into the skin of her palms.

Ducking around Sonny, she dropped her keys and bag on the kitchen counter. She wanted a glass of water, and she wanted to go to sleep. “I’m home now. You got what you wanted.” 

“I wanted you to be home two hours ago, when Jesse was still awake and asking for her mother.” When her only response was to grab a glass from the cabinet, Sonny pursued, standing directly between her and the sink. “Where were you?” 

“Does it matter? I’m here now.”

“Yes, it matters. I had no idea where you were, whether you were safe.” 

“Bullshit. You’re just pissed your display of dominance last night didn’t play out the way you’d hoped.” She knew it wasn’t true even as she said it, but it had the desired reaction. Sonny’s jaw dropped and he took on a wounded expression.

“I’m trying to help you! I don’t want to lose you.” 

“Lose me? You don’t have me now.” Less than a month, and Amanda already knew how to go straight for the jugular. She knew how to catch criminals, and she knew how to get under a dom’s skin. 

Sonny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. In some part of his brain, he must have known that Amanda was intentionally provoking him. “I love you. I can’t just stand by and watch you destroy yourself.” 

“Fine, you don’t have to.” She set her empty glass on the counter and grabbed her keys. As she started toward the door, though, Sonny blocked her path.

“You can’t leave. You have a ten o’clock curfew.”

When she tried to get past him, he backed up until he was flat against the door. She snaked her hand around him and managed to unlatch the deadbolt, but there was no way she could have pulled the door open with him leaning against it. “You can’t just trap me in here.”

“I am _legally obligated_ to trap you in here past ten o’clock. This is a condition of your probation. You asked me to do this.” The calm reminder of Amanda’s complicity in the situation only drove her to redouble her efforts to overcome his blockade. She dug her heel into the back of his knee, hoping to force it to buckle, but with most of his body propped up against the door, he barely budged.

He’d stopped engaging with her at all, just kept his weight on the door and thwarted her with a facility that made her blood boil. Finally, in her frustration, she gave up on trying to get around him and jabbed the point of her thumb into his flank.

“Ow!” he shouted out, then grabbed at the offending hand. She tried to snatch it back, but he already had her wrist in a solid grip, so she pulled the rest of her body back instead, whacking a shoulder blade on the inbuilt shelving behind her. Sonny followed, crowding her against the bookshelves as he hovered over her. “Amanda, stop it. You have to pull it together.”

She shoved him back with her free hand, but he just grabbed that wrist as well, and when she tried to twist out, she found herself maneuvered around, held in his right arm while his left hand rebolted the lock. Her back was pressed up against Sonny’s chest and her arms captive in front of her. With her entire upper body immobilized, she picked up her feet and shoved hard against the bookshelves, launching both her and Sonny into the opposite wall.

Sonny twisted them around and backed further into the apartment, where Amanda’s feet met nothing but air. When she started to kick at his legs instead, he hooked his left arm behind her knee, taking away all of her leverage. He pointed her toward Jesse’s room and spoke softly into her ear. “You have a two year old daughter in there who needs you to pull it together. Can you pull it together, Amanda?” 

His voice was so soft and so close. She felt the pull of submission and fought it with everything she had. She arched her back and straightened the leg he held, using her core strength to break his grip on it, then swung all of her weight back down and tugged on his right arm until she tumbled to the floor. 

“Jesus Christ,” Sonny muttered as she scrambled back to her feet, waving her arms wildly in front of her to keep him from getting too close. She couldn’t remember exactly what she was fighting for, but she knew it wasn’t good when he caught her arm again. She used it as leverage to push at his face, finding purchase as she curled her fingers into his skin. Sonny hissed at the contact. “Snap out of it, Amanda!”

She winced at his outburst, closed her eyes and turned her face from him. She wanted to fight everything, to push everything away until all that was left was emptiness. Instead, she lurched forward as he pulled at her and felt a stinging slap fall on the side of her thigh.

She was frozen, filled with paralyzing rage. She opened her eyes and stared at Sonny, shaking to her core. “What the fuck?!”

He grabbed a shoulder with one hand and cupped the side of her face with the other. His fingers were warm on her suddenly cold skin. “Calm down, calm down,” he hushed her gently. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby, I was just trying to snap you out of it.”

It wasn’t okay. She was dizzy, and should couldn’t tell whether she needed to breathe more or less. 

“Can you look at me, sweetheart?” She couldn’t. She tried to meet his eyes, and instead her gaze fell on a bright scratch across his left cheekbone. She realized she’d done that to him. 

She was drowning in the oppressive air of the room, tried to pull away from his probing stare, but she was locked into place. She couldn’t feel his hands anymore, or anything other than a dull pressure at the edges of her consciousness. 

“I think you’re going into subshock,” he said, but the sound wasn’t quite in synch with the movement of his lips. She felt disconnected from him, from the room, from everything.

“Amanda, I think I should punish you for going out after I told you not to.” It wasn’t a statement, more of an open ended invitation for feedback. Amanda didn’t want to participate in the charade, to play one of those needy subs who craved punishment for every perceived transgression, who fell apart without it. She tried to squirm away, but she just folded in on herself, hunching her shoulders and letting her hands loosely fist in front of her eyes. “Come on.” 

He led her back to the kitchen counter, where Amanda’s heart started to speed up. She looked around for any clues as to what was about to happen, when Sonny clarified everything by grabbing a wooden spatula from one of the drawers. 

“No.” Her voice wavered, and she tried to find some of her earlier fight, but it was lost. 

“Do you have any other ideas?” he asked her. It wasn’t rhetorical, but Amanda’s mind wasn’t working the way that it should.

“I’ll come straight home.” 

“I mean to pull you out of shock, baby.” She tried to think of something, but her thoughts were turning in tight circles, and she felt her whole self squeezed in. “Okay, turn around.” 

She didn’t, so he turned her, her hips flush against the counter while she clenched her fists tightly in front of her face. He held her upper arm in one hand, and the other brought the spatula down on the back of her thigh three times. He paused, and she wondered what he was doing. She held her breath until he turned her back around and she realized it was over. 

She stood, frozen in the same position. She felt small and defeated, but time was beginning to work the way that it should again, with the room coming into synch around the edges of her fists, and she was finally able to feel the press of her knuckles against her brow. 

Sonny reached out to touch her and she took a step back. “No.” 

“Amanda, sweetheart, come on. Let me hug you.” 

“No!” She tightened her fists and tucked in her chin. 

“Okay, let’s just go to bed. We can talk about this in the morning.” 

“I’m sleeping with Jesse.” 

“Sweetheart, you’re gonna get drop.” 

Amanda ground her teeth together. She didn’t care if she got subdrop. She didn’t want his comfort, and she didn’t want his sympathetic eyes watching her, or his soft voice asking if she was okay, or his tentative touches on her skin. She wanted her daughter. “I said I’m sleeping with Jesse!” 

“Okay, baby, whatever you want.” He didn’t leave first, because of course Sonny never left when he thought Amanda might need him. He waited for her to stomp off to the bathroom and get ready for bed, then watched with an anxious face as she changed into her pajamas. “Sweetheart, I really think-” 

“I don’t care what you think. I’m going to be with my daughter.” 

He folded his hands in front of his face, almost as if he were praying, and Amanda left him to it. She entered Jesse’s bedroom, with its starlight stickers and soft night light. Jesse looked perfect, her little face slack with sleep, and one hand curled up, just barely grazing her chin. 

Amanda stood by the door for a minute, letting everything else leave her. She wasn’t careful as she walked over, almost hoping she’d get a stir from her daughter, a soft “Mama?” before the little girl fell back into slumber. Jesse was a sound sleeper, though, and Amanda made it all the way to the bed without disturbing her. She slipped underneath the blankets and curled around the warmth of her daughter, all soft and sweet and smelling of the lavender shampoo that Sonny had bought. She kissed her daughter’s face and whispered how much she loved her, then let herself drift away into sleep.


	5. Friday

When Amanda woke, her arms were empty. From the open bedroom door, the smell of eggs and toast and coffee drew her from under the blankets. She blinked away her grogginess, only to be left drained and slightly nauseated. Her feet were unsteady as she stood and walked the few steps to the kitchen.

“Good morning!” Sonny greeted her, as f he were happy to see her, as if the previous night’s confrontation had never happened. He sat at the table with Jesse, who was making a valiant attempt to mimic his trick of spooning scrambled eggs onto his toast before taking a bite. “Jesse, go give Mommy a hug and kiss good morning.”

Jesse slid from her chair and padded the few steps over to Amanda, who swooped her up in a hug. “Mama, Frannie walked on Sonny.”

“What?”

“Sonny sleeped on the floor, and Frannie walked on him.” Jesse pointed to the floor by her bedroom door as Amanda held her closer and tried to sort through the implications.

“You slept on the floor?” 

“Yeah,” Sonny responded with forced nonchalance. “Did you want some breakfast?”

Jesse squirmed out of Amanda’s hold and ran back to her chair. “Mama, look!”

“That’s great, honey,” she praised absently, as Jesse continued topping her toast with the scrambled eggs. She took in the blanket and pillow on the couch, and instead imagined them in Jesse’s doorway, blocking Amanda’s only exit during the night. Her nausea heightened. “Why were you sleeping on the floor?”

“Can we talk about it later?” he asked, indicating Jesse with a tilt of his head. The toaster dinged, and he reached out to grab the slice, dropping it quickly only the cutting board before smearing some butter over it. “What do you think, Jesse? Should Mommy get triangle toast or rectangle toast?”

“Circle!” Jesse grinned, and Sonny looked at her askance, then pulled out a small bowl and pressed the top of it into the bread, forming a perfect circle from which he could pull away the edges. He popped the toast onto the plate and set everything on the table before taking his seat beside Jesse.

Amanda bit her lip at the sight of them, the image of perfect domesticity as Sonny wiped crumbs from Jesse’s cheek. “I’m not hungry yet.”

“Try to eat something,” Sonny encouraged her, indicating her seat.

She tried to reconcile the man who was breaking off banana pieces for her daughter with the one who had so readily handled her the night before. In truth, it wasn’t hard. She’d forced his hand with her own behavior.

“Amanda?” He was staring up at her, brows drawn together in concern. She wondered what lay underneath the veneer of his surreal kindness, if he was ready to wrestle her into the chair and force the eggs between her lips. She wondered if she wanted it. She fought the idea in the arena of her mind, but inevitably sank into the shame of it, a thick blackness that she couldn’t claw her way out of. She saw herself as he must have seen her the night before, weak and flailing, angry and frightened in turn.

As the bleakness overwhelmed her, the room disappeared. Her face screwed up, her gut gnawed at itself. She heard Sonny's voice, something directed to Jesse, and her footsteps receded in a direction Amanda couldn’t identify. Then Sonny was next to her, his arms around her as he walked her over to the couch, set her down and wrapped a blanket around her. 

“Hold on, baby. Just hold on for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Amanda believed him. He’d always be right back. She gripped the edges of the blanket and held it close to her face. When Sonny returned, he had a juice box ready, peach and apple with a tiny straw that he slipped between her lips.

“Drink this.” His other hand was around her, rubbing circles on her back through the blanket. His body was close enough that she could lean into the solid warmth of it. She grabbed at the juice box, sucking greedily, and his newly freed hand began to card through her hair. “It’s just drop. You’ll be okay in a little bit.”

The last of the juice bubbled through the straw, and Sonny pulled the empty box from her hands. She released it, then let him draw her into his chest and kiss at the top of her head. “You’ve got to let me take care of you, baby. Last night was really intense, and if you don’t let me comfort you, we’ll end up getting drop.”

Amanda shook her head. _They_ didn’t get drop. _Amanda_ had gotten drop. 

“Do you want to talk about what happened last night?” he asked her.

She wrapped the blanket tighter around her. “I want some more juice.”

He kissed her head one more time, then stood to get her another juice box.

* * *

They somehow managed to get to work on time, and without talking about anything that had happened the night before. Amanda immersed herself in the case, counting down the minutes until Sonny would have to leave for an afternoon of trial prep. The threat of breaking down again was too real, and last thing she wanted was to do it in the middle of the squad room. 

She was almost in the clear when Sonny appeared beside her. “Hey, Amanda, before I go, you’re coming straight home tonight, right?”

His tentative tone was making it worse, and she kept her eyes locked on the monitor in front of her. Already she could feel her heartbeat quicken at his presence. “I have a lot of stuff to do right now. I can’t chat with you.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Just come straight home, and keep your phone on, okay?”

He was way too close, and her body wanted to lean into him. She couldn’t control her breathing, much less respond. She started to type, just to give her fingers something to do other than shake where everyone could see them. Sonny stepped even closer, and she clenched her jaw against the wave of emotions. If he touched her, she thought she might cry.

“Amanda…” he started, reaching out for her. 

She twisted away and jumped to her feet, her chair clattering behind her as she shouted, “Back off, Carisi!” 

The squad room fell silent.

Amanda felt the eyes of everyone on her as he froze, his face flushing bright red at her public outburst. She tried to fix her attention back on her desk, but Sonny interrupted her focus with a soft, “Okay, I’ll see you this evening. Have a good afternoon.”

He left before she had to come up with a response, and she was left with nothing to do but right her chair and sit back down, trying to force her body to relax. 

“Amanda, can I see you in my office?” 

Tensing again at Liv’s request, Amanda stood and made her way to the door where the Lieutenant stood waiting. She tried not to shy away as she passed, then stood awkwardly waiting while Liv shut the door and motioned her to the couch.

The couch meant that Amanda wasn’t getting dressed down, that Liv “just wanted to talk” with her. Amanda hesitated before taking a seat, as if she had a choice in it. As if she had a choice in anything.

“Amanda, is everything okay?”

Amanda stared at the closed blinds, as if she could will herself back into the squad room. “We have a serial killer rapist on the loose, so that’s not good.”

Liv’s head tilted with a sympathy that made Amanda’s nails curl into her palms. “I mean with Sonny.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” She couldn’t meet Liv’s gaze, and she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone. She just had to avoid letting any specifics slip out.

“Because if something’s not fine, you can say something.”

The pieces came together, and Amanda drew back in shock. “Liv, Sonny’s not _abusing_ me!”

“I never said he was.”

Amanda couldn’t tell whether her indignation was on Sonny’s behalf or a reaction to again being cast as the victim. She fumed silently as Liv continued to talk.

“You know, some things are okay in general, but they’re not okay with specific people. You can talk to somebody who can figure out what’s going to work for you.”

“I’m not going to therapy,” Amanda scoffed. Therapy had been a condition of her probation, but it had somehow failed to come up at the last court date. She wasn’t about to volunteer.

“Amanda…” Liv started, reaching out to her, and Amanda rolled her eyes at it.

“I have a real dom now. You can stop trying to dom me. Save it for Barba. He _likes_ it.” 

Liv’s eyebrows shot up, and Amanda didn’t blame her. It was completely inexcusable, and she’d probably have been slapped across the face in Atlanta, but that wasn’t Liv’s style. It was probably not even legal in New York. Instead, Liv pressed her lips together and gave Amanda a short nod. “You’re right. I’ll talk to Carisi.” 

“That’s not what I was saying!” Amanda argued, but Liv had already stood and was walking toward her desk.

“That’s where the conversation went.” 

“You and Sonny can’t-” 

“The conversation is over,” Liv cut her off, sitting and shuffling the papers in front of her. “If you’re not ready to get back to work, you can sit on the sofa until you are.” 

Amanda wasn’t about to sit on the sofa like a misbehaving child in a time out. She stormed out of the office, only to run into Barba waiting outside the door. He met her fury with a smirk. “You sweeten her up for me?” 

“Go fuck yourself, Barba.” 

He swept past her with a self satisfied grin.

* * *

Working the case was Fin was a reprieve. He was so easy, just ignoring anything personal and focusing on the job. He worried about her, she knew, but he didn’t rub it in her face like everyone else. 

He also didn’t buy her excuses about overtime, and Amanda found herself back at her own apartment by dinnertime. She could smell the ground beef before she walked through the door, and she let herself in as quietly as possible.

“Hey, Amanda,” Sonny called out as she toed off her boots. He was washing a frying pan in the sink, which Amanda found ridiculous, but he seemed to think would make them last longer. “I just put some stuffed peppers in the oven. They’re supposed to be low carb, but I was thinking I could make home fries to go with them.”

“Yeah, okay,” Amanda said, opening her daughter’s bedroom door and peering into the empty room. “Where’s Jesse?”

“She’s with my dad. I thought we could use the space to talk.” 

“What?!” Amanda’s heart began to race at the thought of her daughter in someone else’s house. “You can’t just send my daughter away!” 

“I didn’t, sweetheart.” Sonny set down the dish towel and started toward her. “She’s just having a sleepover there with Jamie. We’re going to pick her up tomorrow morning.” 

Amanda shook her head quickly and started to yank her boots back on. “I’m picking her up now.” 

“Amanda, wait.” Sonny put a hand on her shoulder, and she jerked away from it. 

“Let go of me!” 

He stepped back, but not enough for her to have a clear exit. “It’s almost seven. By the time you get there, she’ll already be asleep. You just need to-” 

“Don’t tell me what I need to do. I’m going to get my daughter.” She stood and started for the door, but he was already ahead of her, pointing a finger in warning.

“I’m not doing this again tonight. You need to calm down and go back inside.”

She held her ground and glared at him, waiting for her move. Before she could take a step though, he’d already picked her up. She struggled, getting in a few good strikes as he carried her into the living room, where he placed her on middle of the couch. Within seconds, she was back on her feet.

Sonny grabbed her upper arms and set her back down, this time keeping a firm grip on her as he leaned into her space. “I’m not getting in a wrestling match with you. If I have to handcuff you to something to keep you in this apartment-”

She sucked in a breath at the threat, and before she could stop herself, she’d slapped him across the cheek. For a terrifying moment, shock and anger flashed in his eyes, and Amanda flinched back into the couch cushions, her hands instinctively rising to protect her own face. 

“Jesus Christ, Amanda, I’m not going to hit you!” he shouted, before taking a few breaths to collect himself. “And I’m not going to handcuff you. I just want to talk about what happened at work today.”

She kept her protective stance as she glowered up at him. “You’re not my dom at work, Sonny. You’re just another detective.”

“Us keeping our personal and professional lives separate is not an excuse for you to treat me like garbage at the precinct.” Amanda couldn’t tell whether he was scolding her, or just trying to stand up for himself. She chewed at the inside of her lip and stared at Jesse’s door while he finished. “You don’t talk to anyone else at work like that.”

“Yeah, well, no one else at work is bitching at me about when I’m getting home,” she muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

“No one else at work has a court order telling them that they have to make sure you won’t do anything that’ll end you up in jail,” he countered, and she almost jumped from her seat in indignation.

“That court order is bullshit! They never would have done that if I’d been a dom.”

Sonny just shook his head at her. “If you were a dom, this would not have been an option, and you already would have lost Jesse.”

“Really? Because Amaro beat the shit out-.”

“Amaro lost custody of his daughter. He had to quit his job and move across the country just to be around her. Do you want to be living in Georgia again, Amanda? Because that’s where Jesse would be right now if you were a dom, living with your mother in Georgia.” The image of Jesse living with her mother flashed through Amanda’s mind, and her chest clenched tight, leaving her lungs without enough oxygen. The room started to spin around her, and she fought to keep the panic at bay. “I’m not stupid, Amanda. I know the only reason you married me was so you could keep Jesse. I just thought...” 

“Thought what?!” she demanded, furious at whatever plans he hadn’t consulted her on, at how he’d become the driver of her and Jesse’s lives. “Thought I’d fall down at your feet in gratitude?” 

“No! I thought I could make you happy! I didn’t know you’d hate me.” 

The broken sound of his voice cut through Amanda’s rage. She didn’t know what to do with his vulnerability. She’d thought that breaking a dom like that would be a victory, but instead she just felt empty. “I don’t hate you,” she mumbled, but he wasn’t listening, too wrapped up in his own confessions.

“I’ve just been trying so hard, with taking care of things here and with Jesse, and with these stupid stuffed peppers that you said you liked.” It occured to Amanda that Sonny wasn’t just following a script or fulfilling some abstract duty of what it meant to be a dom or a husband or father. He was doing these things for her. “I try so hard, and no matter what I do, you still hate me.” 

“I don’t hate you,” she repeated, and this time he heard her. He got himself back under control, dragging the heel of his palm just underneath his eyes.

“I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to yell at you.” 

It was so stupid that he was apologizing to her. He couldn’t bear to see her upset. It was a biological imperative for him to protect her, encoded into his DNA, just as it should have been encoded into hers to let him, if she hadn’t been so broken. Nothing was his fault. The only thing wrong with him was that he was too naive, thinking that what was wrong with her could be fixed with kindness and spinach lasagne. The truth hit Amanda hard, that he actually did really love her, and that she couldn’t love him back. She didn’t think that she had it in her to love anyone, not with how empty she was inside. Even what she felt for Jesse was more fierce protectiveness and need than the maternal bliss she knew was expected of her. She sank into the thickness of it as Sonny sat down beside her, now more concerned with comforting her than calling her out for treating him like shit most the time.

“I’m really sorry, Amanda. I know you’re trying, too. I didn’t mean to sound like you’re not.” She let him put his arms around her, kiss at her temple and whisper comforting things that she didn’t want to hear. “I love you. I just want to make you happy. Tell me what will make you happy.” 

“Nothing.” 

He just held her tighter. “Remember how we used to just hang out together, and it was so much fun?”

It seemed like a lifetime ago, but Amanda nodded.

“Do you think we can be like that again?”

“I don’t know.” She rested her head against him, and he sighed.

“I feel like such a failure.”

She wanted to tell him that he was perfect, that he was the best dom she’d ever been with, that everything was her own fault, but the words stuck in her throat. It was just easier to let him do the talking.

“I know I messed up last night, but I just didn’t know what to do. I was just so tired and stressed about everything, and then you wouldn’t let me touch you, and I ended up dropping so hard, I couldn’t even think straight.”

“You dropped?” Amanda asked. She knew doms could drop, but she’d never been with one who would admit to it.

“Yeah, pretty hard. I just really had to be close to you, so I slept next to Jesse’s door. I know it was stupid.” It didn’t sound stupid to Amanda. In fact, it sounded a lot better than him trying to block her escape from the apartment. “It’s hard for me not to be able to touch you. I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes I really need you.”

Amanda shifted to allow him a better hold on her, and she let a hand drift up to the back of his neck, softly toying with the short hairs at its nape. As she touched him, his shoulders dropped slightly and he let out a breath. His arms tightened around her and head dropped to rest at the top of hers.

“Is this okay?” he asked. “You don’t mind?”

“It’s okay.”

“It feels so good,” he murmured into her hair. “I’ve missed you so much.”

They sat like that for a while, as the smell of stuffed peppers filled the apartment. Amanda was almost comfortable.

“I need Jesse,” she said into Sonny’s shirt.

“I know, baby. We’ll pick her up first thing tomorrow morning. We can go to the park and eat out if you want. We'll have a great day, all three of us.”

Amanda nodded, then let her mind drift to the rest of the evening. “Are you going to punish me for slapping you?”

“Did you want me to?”

It was an odd question. She’d slapped her dom in the face, and that after flagrantly defying him and doing her best to get in as many kicks and punches as possible while he’d been restaining her. The real shock was that there hadn’t been any immediate retaliation.

“No,” she answered, and Sonny kissed the top of her head. 

“I was out of line with that thing about handcuffing you.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just… panicked.”

Sonny laughed. “Amanda, I’ve seen you take people down before. If you’d wanted to hurt me, you would have done it. Besides, I was the one who made things physical.”

“You just seemed madder than last night.”

“You know I only did that to keep you from going into shock, right? It wasn’t because I was mad, or because of anything that you did.”

The extensive litany of what Amanda had done ran through her head. “It’s okay. I know I deserved worse.”

“You deserve the best, Amanda. I’m going to be better for you.”

He was already so good. Amanda didn’t think she could take it if he were any better.


	6. Saturday

Sonny was true to his word, and they were on the Staten Island Ferry by eight o’clock. They sat on the port side, away from the early morning tourists angling for a photo of the Statue of Liberty. From their side, the ferry window provided an unobstructed view of the entire Brooklyn Bridge. Amanda looked down from it to stare at the rushing water below and leaned back into Sonny, who had an arm draped around her shoulders. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet since Amanda woke, his tendency to fill each silence jarringly absent from her morning.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said into the bay. “If something happens to me, I want you to keep Jesse. I don’t want her to go to my mom.”

Sonny squeezed her shoulder, rubbing his thumb in circles over the tight muscles. “Yeah, I can set up the paperwork for that this week, if you want.”

“And if something happens to both of us, I want her to go to your mom.” When he hesitated, Amanda shifted to see his concerned expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, baby, but the court has final say on custody. Even if you name a guardian in your will, there’s no guarantee that’s who the court will choose.”

“And there’s nothing I can do?” The thought of the court sending Jesse to Georgia was unbearable. She read his face easily, knowing that there was something he didn’t want to say. “What?”

Finally, he let out a breath and relented. “The only way to guarantee that she could stay with me is for me to adopt her.”

“Okay, let’s do that,” she decided, then turned back to the window to watch Governors Island slide slowly away.

“Baby, if I adopt her, it’ll make me a custodial parent immediately,” he explain, as if Amanda didn’t know what adoption was. “It’s not something you could take back. I’d be her father in the eyes of the law, and I’d have just as much right to her as you do.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I want.” 

He didn’t reply, other than to put his other arm around her, too, and pull her right up to him until her head rested against his cheek.

* * *

Bella was already at the Kiss and Ride when they disembarked the ferry. She waved to them from the car and they walked over. The area wasn’t too busy on a Saturday morning, with most of the ferry crowd looping back to immediately return to Manhattan.

Sonny offered her the front seat, but she waved him off, preferring to sit in the back where she didn’t need to make idle conversation for the twenty minute car ride. They got in, and Sonny kissed his sister as they all exchanged greetings and Bella pulled the car from the curb.

“I can’t believe you’re here so early! Tommy’s not coming until noon.”

As Sonny shifted in his seat, his earlier quiet started to give way to more obvious signs of apprehension. “Yeah, Amanda wanted to see Jesse.”

“Oh, speaking of, you’re in really deep shit with Mom and Dad right now.”

“Yeah, Bella, I _know_ ,” Sonny snapped, and Amanda leaned forward.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” Sonny groaned, and put his hands over his face.

“When Dad found out Sonny didn’t ask you if they could take Jesse, he flipped his shit. He was chewing Sonny out over the phone for almost half an hour this morning.” 

“Thanks, Bella.”

“You’re welcome, _Dominick_ , and thanks for having me bring Jesse over, so I got to hear about it for another hour after you hung up,” she replied, then flashed a grin at Amanda through the rear view mirror. Apparently her irritation was reserved for Sonny alone. “Hey Amanda, do you want to go out to brunch with me and Gina next Saturday? There’s this place in Brooklyn with bottomless mimosas that she’s been wanting to try. It has really good Yelp reviews.”

For a moment, Amanda thought Bella might be baiting her, but she saw Sonny’s tense at the mention of alcohol, and he cut in before Amanda had to make anything up.

“Amanda and I barely have enough time together outside of work as it is.”

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Sonny!” Bella’s voice was hot, and Amanda’s stomach tightened with the tension emanating from the front of the car. “I was asking Amanda.”

“He’s right, though, Bella. We were just talking about how we never get to hang out anymore.”

Bella waved off the concern. “Okay, when your honeymoon period is over, and you don’t have to spend every waking moment with each other, text me, okay? Sonny can watch the kids while we go out, or maybe ship them to Jersey without telling us.”

“Why are you giving me such a hard time?!” Sonny threw his hands up as he turned toward his sister, and Amanda leaned back into her seat, away from the escalating argument. “I already heard it from Dad this morning, and Mom’s going to have her opinion. I don’t need to hear it from you, too!”

Amanda’s heart was pounding, but Bella didn’t seem phased by her brother’s outburst, somehow managing to keep the car under control as she gesticulated wildly with both her hands. “I didn’t need to hear it either, but you roped me into it!”

“Oh, my God, Bella! I asked you if she could sleep over. You’re the one who wanted to take them to Mom and Dad’s, so could you please talking about this like it’s some sort of child trafficking ring?!”

“Okay, I’m sorry!” she shouted. “I’m sorry. But next time you do something to piss Dad off, don’t put me in the middle of it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, sorry!” he snapped back, before turning to face the window.

“Good, you should be.” Bella took one hand off the wheel to punch him in the arm, and he snickered, rubbing at where she’d made contact. She laughed back, and Amanda blinked with the emotional whiplash of their interaction. She was still trying to process what had happened when Bella caught her eye in the mirror again. “But seriously, I do want to hang out with you, Amanda. Sonny’s presence is optional.”

Sonny snorted and shook his head, then turned around to grin at Amanda. He was in his element.

* * *

Their arrival at the Carisi house was predictably chaotic, with everyone getting grabbed up for hugs by everyone and Jesse begging Amanda to go to the backyard and see the trampoline that she and Jamie had been playing on for most of the morning. Amanda followed her daughter behind the house and watched as she climbed up and through the safety netting.

“Mama, look!” she shouted, pulling off her shoes and starting to bounce. She kept at it for a few minutes, then fell back to her knees and grabbed her shoes again. “Mama, help me!”

Amanda crawled inside with her and helped Jesse get her shoes back on, taking the opportunity to comb Jesse’s hair back down with her fingers. The little girl’s face was pink with exertion, and Amanda couldn’t help but kiss her cheeks. Jesse squirmed around and reached out for help getting down from the trampoline, chattering on about a princess dress as Amanda maneuvered them both down to the grass. Jesse’s feet had barely hit the ground before she took off toward the back porch, and Amanda followed, spurred on by her daughter’s encouragement as Jesse waited for her at the back door.

They went in together, but Jesse shot off again as soon as they got through the door. Amanda followed more slowly, then stopped completely when she heard Deborah’s voice through a closed door.

“Sonny, I don’t want to hear another word about how this has been hard for you. You don’t think this has been hard for Amanda? She almost lost her daughter a few weeks ago, and you decided to send her away overnight without saying anything.”

“Jeez, you know that’s not how it happened.”

Knowing she should follow Jesse down the hallway, Amanda lingered by the door, anxious to hear what Sonny would say about her when he didn’t know she was listening.

“I know it’s not what you meant to happen, but it looks like a power play, that you can take her child away whenever you want. And over what? Because you didn’t like the _tone of voice_ she used with you at work?”

She wondered whether Deborah knew the whole story, what she’d done to Sonny, and how she’d almost brought he weight of the courts down on them all, how throughout it all, he’d been the one making sure Jesse was fed and bathed and dressed each day. “No, Ma, because she’s mad at me all the time. And I know you think I deserve it this time, but she’s mad at me _all the time_ , no matter what I do. I thought she was going to ask me for a divorce as soon as she was off probation, and then out of the blue this morning she says she wants me to adopt Jesse. So now I don’t know what to think. I mean, I’m seriously confused. I have no idea what she’s thinking.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“I try, but she shuts down. She doesn’t trust me.”

“You’re telling me that the woman who married you, signed a guardianship release, and asked you to adopt her daughter doesn’t trust you?”

Amanda was so engrossed in the conversation, she didn’t hear anything in the hallway until a voice spoke just a few inches from her ear. “Amanda?”

Amanda started, then swivelled around to find Sonny’s father standing directly behind her. She flushed, but he didn’t seem too alarmed by her eavesdropping.

“Let’s go check on the kids,” he suggested, and she walked with him to find Jamie and Jesse in the living room, pulling costumes from a cardboard box. Jesse was already wearing a tiara, and Jamie was in full Disney princess get-up. Jamie was also the clear princess costume expert, as she walked Jesse through the process of choosing her dress.

Guilt gnawed at Amanda’s gut as she sat next to Dominick on the couch. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she spoke, softly so the girls wouldn’t overhear. “That thing last night, I overreacted. Sonny didn’t do anything wrong.”

Dominick reached over to pat her leg. “That’s sweet of you to say, Amanda, but Deborah and I know what happened.”

“Yeah, but if you knew the whole story-”

“Amanda, sweetheart, Deborah and I know what’s happening. It’s okay.”

It definitely wasn’t okay, but he was insistent, and Amanda didn’t want to argue. He put an arm around her and squeezed her tight, the default Carisi reaction to any emotion, as far as Amanda could tell. 

“Mama, help me!” Jesse indicated the open back of the dress she’d chosen, and Amanda went to her, kneeling to do up the velcro on the costume.

“You look so pretty, baby,” Amanda cooed over her, and Jesse preened, then looked over Amanda’s shoulder.

“Sonny, look! I’m a princess.”

“Hello, Princess Jesse, Princess Jamie!” Sonny greeted them as he approached, and Amanda stood quickly, searching his face for any indication of how the rest of the conversation with his mother had gone. He seemed fine, though, smiling and reaching for her like there was no one else in the world he’d rather be with. “And I guess that makes you Queen Amanda, huh?”

Before she could answer, she was distracted by the sound of Jamie clambering up the overstuffed chair beside them, leaving her plastic scepter behind her as she found a perch on the large arm. 

“Uncle Sonny, catch me!” she shouted, then launched herself at Sonny. Amanda jumped back as Sonny grabbed Jamie mid-air, then lifted her above his head before setting her back on the floor. Soon, Jesse had replaced her on the chair.

“Uncle Sonny, catch me!”

Amanda smiled. “Sonny’s not your uncle, baby. He’s your step-dad.”

“Step-dad Sonny, catch me!”

Jesse leapt from the arm of the chair, and Sonny caught her easily, spinning her around before holding her against his chest. Her tiara had shifted in the excitement, and she pushed it back from her eyes as she giggled into his face, her hair a bird’s nest of tangles around the plastic.

Sonny kissed her nose and tried to set her down, but she wrapped her arms around his neck. “All right, Princess Messy Hair, are you going to make me carry you around the whole day?”

“Your whole life!” she pronounced, securing her hold on him.

“My whole life?” He grinned at Amanda, and her chest tightened at the sight of them, Sonny with his arms wrapped around Jesse, and her tilting her head up to kiss his cheek.

* * *

“I’ve never seen him so happy,” Deborah said over her coffee. They sat at the kitchen table together, Amanda unsure how she’d ended up trapped alone with Sonny’s mother while everyone else had been exiled to the back yard. It would almost be a reprieve, if Amanda didn’t have suspicions about Deborah’s motives for the one on one.

“He’s so good with Jesse. She loves him,” Amanda said, knowing that much was the truth, at least. Sonny hadn’t seemed happy at all in the conversation Amanda had overheard, after all. “She loves your whole family.”

“It’s her family, too, Amanda, and yours.” 

It didn’t feel like Amanda’s family, but she could see how it might be Jesse’s. She took another sip of her coffee to avoid saying anything.

“You know, all Sonny wants to do is make you happy.”

“Yeah, I know,” Amanda said. Of course he wanted to make her happy. He was everything society insisted a dom should be. It wasn’t his fault if Amanda didn’t have the constitution for it, and she was willing to sit there while Deborah rubbed it in, if that’s what it took to get through the visit.

“But that doesn’t mean he’s any good at it.”

The criticism fell flat, unexpected and misplaced. Amanda shook her head, confounded by it. “No, Sonny’s perfect.”

“Amanda, I love my son, and he’s a good man, but he’s not perfect.”

“I mean the way he treats me and Jesse, he’s perfect.” 

Deborah didn’t argue, just lay a hand on Amanda’s arm and smiled. “You know when you married Sonny, you got our whole family, right?”

Amanda nodded, the warmth of Deborah’s hand sparking a vulnerability she hadn’t known was there.

“If you ever need anything, you just let us know,” Deborah continued. “Just don’t do anything drastic, okay?”

As her breath caught in her throat, Amanda wondered how transparent she was. Deborah was staring at her as if Amanda were still standing on that railing, hovering over the dark water of the river. This time, though, she didn’t feel empty. She felt small and helpless and exposed. “Okay,” she agreed, and Deborah squeezed her tight.

“We are so lucky to have you.”

* * *

They took the ferry back in the early afternoon, this time fighting their way through the masses of tourists as they took their seats on the port side. Sonny pointed out the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to Jesse as they passed, and she pressed her face to the glass, soaking in everything he told her about the landmarks.

By the time they reached Whitehall Terminal, it was well into naptime, and Jesse was passed out in the stroller. They took the subway to Central Park, wending their way toward a favorite playground, then sitting in the afternoon air as they waited for Jesse to rouse.

Sonny didn’t try to start a conversation, and Amanda enjoyed the silence for a while, leaning into him when he put an arm around her. His touch felt different since he’d broken down the day before, less prescriptive and more comfortable. She wondered that it never occurred to her that he might need her as much as she was supposed to need him.

“I’m not mad at you all the time,” she said out of nowhere, before she could think better of it.

Sonny squinted at her, confused. “I know you’re not. I mean, you’re not mad now, right?”

She shook her head and looked out into the park. “You told your mom I was mad at you all the time, but I’m not. I’m just mad, and you’re there. I know it’s not fair.”

“My mom says you trust me enough to see you at your worst.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, and he must have taken it as an encouraging sign, because he put his free hand on her cheek and tilted her head just enough that he could kiss at her temple. She did her best not to react to the affection. “I just sometimes think maybe you and Jesse would be better off if…”

For a few moments he waited for her to finish, but when she just ducked her head, realization must have struck him. He tensed and grabbed her tightly, pulling her into his chest. “No, we wouldn’t.”

The grip was too much, and she pushed at him to free herself. He released her, but kept his hands on her body as she took in his panicked expression. “Amanda, we really wouldn’t. Please don’t talk like that. We need you.”

“I’m not going to do anything.”

He didn’t believe her, just trained his eyes on her like she might disappear before him. “Jesse…” he started helplessly.

“I’m really not.”

“My mom said,” he started before breaking off to stare into the stroller. His face scrunched up like he was fighting his own mind over the words he was about to speak. “She said that my wife has a life-threatening illness, and I’m not taking it seriously enough.”

There was nothing to say to that. Shame filled her, and rested her face in her hands, massaging at her brow with the tips of her fingers. Sonny ran his own hand up her arm and let it rest on the back of her neck, rubbing small circles right at the top of her spine.

“What can I do?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“There’s nothing to do. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry I dragged you into it.” She thought about it, how he’d had no idea what he’d signed up for, and had just tried harder when everything started falling apart, cooked more, _cared_ more. She thought of him and Jesse. “No, I’m not.”

“I’m not sorry, either.”

Jesse began to stir, and Amanda sat up, getting control of herself. As she took several deep breaths, Sonny pulled Jesse from the stroller and onto his lap. She squinted and blinked at the park around her, the miracle of naptime having instantaneously transported her to the playground.

“Sonny, swing with me?” she asked softly, her head resting against his chest. Sonny combed her hair down from the mess her nap had made of it and looked to Amanda. She realized he didn’t want to leave her alone, not even to take Jesse to the swingset just a few feet away. When he didn’t reply, Jesse lifted her face to see him. “Step-dad Sonny?”

The name had persisted through the afternoon, reinforced by the soft chuckles of various adults in the house as they heard it, as well as Sonny’s doting response to any interaction with Jesse. Amanda didn’t like it. “I changed my mind, baby. Sonny’s your daddy. You can all him ‘Daddy Sonny’ if you want.”

Sonny froze, and Amanda worried that she might have gone too far, too soon. But Jesse twisted in his arms so she could meet him nose to nose, and put a hand on each of his cheeks. “ _Daddy_ Sonny,” she said, and he melted.

* * *

The day had been exhausting, and Sonny and Amanda climbed into bed soon after Jesse had fallen asleep. Sonny gave her space, as he had been since she’d dropped the pretense of wanting his hands on her body. Amanda thought back to his words the night before, about how it was hard on him not to touch her, that he was vulnerable in the way she was supposed to be.

She scooted over to his side of the bed and pressed up against him, draping an arm against his chest. It felt good. It scared her how good it felt.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess, why?”

“Nothing.” He lay his own arm over hers, loosely grasping it in his long fingers. “The cuddling, it’s new.”

“You said you wanted us to touch more.”

“Yeah, I did, if you’re comfortable with it.” He shifted to allow her to lie in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder. His breath tickled at her bangs.

“It’s fine.”

The rise and fall of his chest lulled her, and she had to stop herself from matching the rhythm with her own breath. She fought her body’s response to him and let her hand drift down to the edge of his soft pajama pants. His chest stilled.

Satisfied at having elicited such a strong reaction, Amanda slipped her hand underneath the waistband and trailed her fingers down the line of his cock, already hard at her touch.

“Amanda...” Sonny grabbed at her wrist, and she let her hand rest motionless on his erection, then resisted as he started to pull it back up toward his chest. She could hear the confusion and conflict in his voice. “Are you...? I don’t think this is a good idea.” 

“I want to.” There was no reason for him to believe her, but he didn’t have to believe her. He just had to relent. She peered up at him through her eyelashes, and she pitched her voice just on the right side of pleading. “I’ve been good the whole day.”

His whole body shuddered, and his hand fell away. She resumed stroking him within the confines of the flannel pants. It would be easier if he’d take them off, but she didn’t want him to help her. She wanted him to continue subtly writhing beside her as she forced him to abandon control.

As his breathing sharpened and he began to thrust into her hand, she looked up at his face. His eyes were closed, and his mouth formed a perfect circle. Soon he was clutching at the sheets, and as she bit lightly on her bottom lip, his back arched and he came, spilling out over her hand and into his clothing.

She stopped, then pulled her hand out, sticky and warm. Sonny took a few deep breaths, then turned on his side and began petting at Amanda’s hair and kissing her face. “Oh, God, Amanda.”

She let him fawn over her as the wetness on her hand cooled in the open air of the bedroom.

“Do you want me to…?” The question trailed off as Sonny hovered above her in the dark, propped up on one elbow while the other hand traced the line of her jaw. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” she said, and for a moment he seemed anxious, until he bent down to kiss her again. He slid the pajama pants off and used a clean corner to wipe down Amanda’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”

He found a new pair of pants and took them into the bathroom. She lay there, listening to the water run as she waited for him to come back out. When he did, he had a glass of water and a warm washcloth, which he used to clean off her hand, running it between each of her fingers and murmuring softly, “You’re so good to me, baby.”

It was only then that she realized she’d fallen into subspace. He must have seen it before he’d gone to the bathroom. He put the glass to her lips and prompted her to take a few sip, then finished it off when she turned her head from the rest. Putting it and the washcloth aside, he took her hand and kissed each of her fingers in turn. “So good for me.”

She’d thought she wanted him to force him lose control, but as he brushed her hair back from her face and continued to praise her with his words and gentle kisses to her face and hands, she found herself warmed that she’d pleased him. It was how she imagined most other subs must feel.

She floated on the feeling, until subspace receded and the world came into starker focus around her. It was a jarring shift in perception, and Sonny couldn’t miss the change in her countenance. He held her through it. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, and he must have believed her, because his face suddenly displayed a vulnerability that he only allowed himself when he thought she could handle it. “Please tell me that was something you wanted to do.”

She shrugged and used the movement to burrow deeper into his embrace. She thought she might be angry at him, but she still wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in his affection. She was getting used to the dissonance and knew that she could have both. “Maybe I can’t make Pinterest cupcakes or wash the pans right, but I can do that.”

“Jesus, Amanda.” Sonny cradled her head to his chest and kissed at the top of it. She pressed her face into his tee shirt, unwilling to stop until she’d melded herself into him.

“I wanted to,” she said, muffled by the cotton. “Maybe not the way you wanted me to want to, but stop ruining everything.” 

He laughed at her feeble aggression and squeezed her tighter. “I want to kiss you good night. Is that okay?”

She nodded, mainly just relieved that he’d been willing to drop the topic. “If you want.”

Cupping her chin, he tilted her face up toward his and kissed at the corner of her mouth. “I love you, Amanda. Good night.”

For the first time, she let herself fall asleep in his arms


End file.
